The Fifty Shades of Grey Matter

Proof once again that women are definitely more sexual than men.

A while back, after emailing Codie the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, I challenged her to a race to see who would write an article about the series first, which she of course won. I mean, come on, I've certainly made it no secret in the past that when it comes to anything related to sex, the woman should always come first. Now while I agree with Codie that these are very poorly written "books," I agree with her even more that "the spread of knowledge is integral to a growing and thriving human race." Well technically, the spread of something else is really what's integral to a growing and thriving human race, but yeah…sure…knowledge comes in at a close second. So with that in mind, here's my take on the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.

One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them…with rope, or maybe a silk tie.

When I first heard about this BDSM book trilogy, and more specifically how all these women were going nuts for it, of course, I immediately thought, "Well obviously that is something I simply must read." Admittedly, it took me a lot longer to finish the trilogy than I thought, mostly because each and every time the phrase "inner goddess" was mentioned I had a two-day internal debate as to why I shouldn't shoot myself in the goddamn face, thereby spraying my grey matter all over the wall, so I would never have to read those words again. That said, I still believe these are books that everyone should read* and I'll tell you why.

*Or listen to, as they are also available as audio books.

As poorly as these books are written—and I'd like to point out that even E. L. James, the author herself, has admitted that they are poorly written—it's STILL a detailed book about a girl who gets fucked six ways to Sunday and then begs for more! Exactly what about that isn't appealing to all of you naysayers?! I mean, for me personally, a book about a woman in a BDSM relationship is WAY MORE interesting and definitely higher on the reading list than compared to, oh I don't know…say, the Steve Jobs biography, which as I recall was a mind-numbingly detailed and boring account of how a computer company was run by some massive douchebag who fucked people over while acting like a total dick. Granted, there are some similarities there, but I think we can all agree that countless accounts of a woman being fucked by a giant dick are way more entertaining than countless accounts of people getting fucked over by a giant dick.

I was a fucked-up, dickish, megalomaniac, control freak, CEO with parental issues, before it was sexy.

However, the one thing that struck me most about the Fifty Shades of Grey series, and what I really want to discuss most with you people, is how many women read the book compared to men. In fact, it's the men's general response to the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy that I find the MOST fascinating and telling.

Men:(In a whiny voice) OMG this is such terrible writing! I wouldn't be caught dead reading this! I'd rather read about computer components.

Women:(In a post orgasmic voice)PLEASE SIR, I'D LIKE SOME MORE!

I mean, if that isn't the ultimate end of the debate about which gender is the more sexual one, then I don't know what is. Here we have all these women going nuts about the quite literal ins and outs of a BDSM relationship, while the men aren't at all into it, in the least. Seriously, if I held up a sign that said "Read this book and you might have the off chance to tie up your girlfriend/wife and fuck her mercilessly as she screams out for more," you'd think there would be a line of men around the block in order to buy a copy, but nope, apparently not. Seriously guys, I've said it before and I'll say it again, some of you are a fucking embarrassment to our gender as a whole.

I believe it was Mel Brooks who said, "Sex is like pizza: even when it's bad it's good." I view the Fifty Shades of Grey books the same way. Sure, they sucked as far as writing goes, but I'm pretty sure E. L. James wasn't going for great literature, but more like, oh, I don't know, maybe light BDSM literature as it's actually described. I mean, what the fuck did you guys expect? Isn't there a fair amount of sucking going on in porn (see what I did there?) as far as storylines and dialogue go, but aren't men still watching that all the time?! It just doesn't add up. Personally, I think the main reason men aren't into these books is because they are threatened by the idea of women as extremely sexual creatures, which, ironically, happens to make those men giant pussies.

"Defile me! Humiliate me! Only do it! Do it! Hump! Hump! HUMP!"

So my question to all the men out there is: EXACTLY WHY aren't you reading these books? A massive amount of women have gone on record and said that they love the books and would even like to try some of the things in the book with the men in their lives, and your response is that you don't want to read them "because of shitty writing"?! Give me a fucking break, would you?! Come on, that's not the real reason. At least be a man and have the balls to admit that you're actually intimidated by the idea of women being more sexual than you. You can't sell people on the idea of men being more sexual than women and then turn your nose up at the prospect of trying wildly freaky things in the sack, simply because of shitty writing. You just can't have it both ways, and unless you can come up with a better answer as to why you aren't reading these books then I have to say again… women are definitely, by far, THE MORE SEXUAL of the two genders. If you doubt that for a second, you only have to look at the sale demographics of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.

Oh and one more thing…for the record, guys, if you respond with the fact that you are actually Fifty Shades of Gay, I'll accept that as a legitimate reason for not wanting to read these books. I mean, at least that would make some amount of logical sense.

OMG! It's a detailed book about a man repeatedly tying up and fucking a woman multiple different ways! I definitely don't want to read that!

22 Comments

As a lesbian (or 50 Shades of Gay, as I will now refer to myself as for ever and ever and ever), I've found replacing "he" with "she" can make some parts of the book interesting even for me.
Seriously though, man up.

Actually it's Queen Victoria's fault we've been brainwashed into thinking men are more sexual than women...
"Queen Victoria starts a trend by wearing virginal white, instead of the traditional jeweled wedding gown. Historically thought of as the lustier sex, women are now considered chaste and pure. As a result, many men find it easier to have sex with prostitutes than with their virtuous wives."
--http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200505/marriage-history

I haven't read it just because I have no interest in BDSM. I'd be comfortable studying it as an academic investigation topic, but that's about it. :P

I agree though porn mostly sucks, at least 21st century porn does. Also sometimes you can get away with a hell of a lot more in written form than visual... which is probably why when they make it into a movie it'll be entertaining to see how it can get away with anything other than an NC-17 or "unrated" direct-to-DVD release...or just a porno (which means much more restrictive access than a book trilogy.). lol. So point being women probably just get away with a lot more sexual content without most people even realizing it because reading is a much more discrete activity... :P

I'm not sure one can make that leap Genuine Mach. While it's true that Queen Victoria started the trend of wearing virginal white, I don't know if one can attribute the brainwashing that men are more sexual than women to just that. You see, while they may have seen their wives as more virginal and virtuous that day, they also saw the prostitutes as the opposite and both of them are women. Furthermore, it isn't like the women were wearing white all the time, but rather only on that specific day, thus every single sexual desire that a woman exhibited after the fact would fly directly in the face of their idea. Lastly, it wasn't like women were treated as sexual equals before Queen Victoria and it is widely documented that women have been persecuted for their sexuality since the dawn of time, across multiple cultures far removed from European society.

No, I dare say that men's fear of a woman's sexuality goes back far further and is a lot more culturally wide spread than simply being attributed to European monarchy.

I actually think this book is going to be studied academically quite a bit in the future, BECAUSE it is so poorly written. Like most historically recognized literature, it isn't so much the quality of the writing as much as it's the time period and social paradigm that the book is published during that makes it successful. Certainly the idea of a woman writing erotic literature isn't new and certainly women have been reading erotic literature for ages, so there must be something else that is making this the most successful paperback book sold...EVER! To ignore that fact and not study its implications, like any other book that has influenced society in the past, would be a shame.

Yeah, I've been wondering how they are going to make this a movie without it being ridiculously muted and censored, but then I guess that is true with ANY book made into a movie. Rarely has a movie ever done a book justice and this will likely be no different. Porn has always been one of those strange animals that I can't quite wrap my head around. I mean, I get why people watch it and I don't have any problem with them watching it, but for me personally, the ridiculousness nature of it all detracts too much from the point and my imagination can often out do whatever would be on the screen anyway. I don't laugh hysterically while having sex and I simply can't imagine watching porn without repeatedly cracking up at the absurdity of it all. In addition, like watching sports, it just seems silly to me to be sitting there watching something that I could just go and do instead. I watch Sci-Fi and Fantasy movies, because those are things that aren't available to me in reality, but why would I want to watch a movie of other people having sex when I could just be having it instead? I mean, if I could space travel with very little effort, I doubt I'd be watching Sci-Fi movies either, I'd be out exploring the universe.

lol.... I wasn't attributing the brainwashing to Victorian culture...
well, I was, but it was hyperbolic. (To address two comments at the same time because I'm that lazy, I also wasn't blaming primarily male homophobic aspects of culture on European monarchies, I was making a parallel b/w the religious oppression and persecution colonists were trying to get away from at the time -- which was largely rooted in Puritanical and Victorian ideologies -- with the way American culture seems to be particularly good at perpetuating whatever remains of that now... such as the homophobia amongst mostly men, and the "prude-whore" dichotomy amongst primarily women.)

It's certainly not nearly as culturally reinforced as it was historically in many instances, but when I talk to people from various parts of (mainly Western) Europe, they seem to get the idea when interacting with Americans that there is a more exaggerated effect here than there is there.

In ancient Athens women weren't considered citizens, usually wives and daughters (if there were any) were locked up in rooms together, which they weren't allowed out of... in Sparta, there was a lot more gender egalitarianism, but they had that whole eugenics thing about breeding the warrior class. So they basically took all the hotties (as determined by their government, I assume), stuck them all in warrior training, encouraged men and women to pair up, to encourage them to have warrior babies. I guess they justified it by saying they were giving women equal opportunity to defend their people side-by-side with men, as opposed to the atrocity that was Athens. :P I think early democracy may have an even darker past than many non-democratic systems ever did...

"...it just seems silly to me to be sitting there watching something that I could just go and do instead."
I agree, I have trouble watching most sports because either they are too hard to actually follow with a TV camera (ice hockey.. that one's fun to see live though); too slow from a third-person perspective (baseball, golf, others), or it's comparatively okay to watch but there are too many other interruptions like commercials and timeouts (football.. also more fun if you're actually at an arena.)

I like watching the X-Games sometimes because even watching that can give you a bit of a rush, thing is then I just want to go out and do it which usually isn't convenient at the time. So it's more like an anticlimactic rush. haha. Again if I actually went there in person (which is expen$!ve) it'd probably be more.. climactic. :P

Same with porn really, except that might just have to do with how critical I am, "butterface...."; "what is this, The Onion's rendition of porn?"; "I'm having a hard time taking this shitty, desperate acting seriously"; "FAKE!" (that could refer to a lot of things...); "she's not even hot, people actually like this? I'd rather go to a mall or even a grocery store and look at women there, where do they get these people? Why are men's standards so pathetically low? How is this becoming the suspect of an epidemic addiction??... Why do I still live on this planet??"
hahaha

Fair enough, I was just going off of, "Actually it's Queen Victoria's fault we've been brainwashed into thinking men are more sexual than women..." and couldn't let the rest of history off the hook. Also the injustice and irony of trying to pin it all on a woman was just too much to let go.

Yeah, well the blame is always greener on the other side of the pond...or something with grass, who the fuck knows, but this seems like a good place to link this article:

I've never actually been to a professional sporting event, mostly because I can't stand watching it on television where the camera gets right up in the player's faces, so I can't see how watching it with binoculars would be any better. People always say that the energy of the crowd is the draw, but from what I've seen that energy comes from a bunch of face painted, jersey wearing, drunk douche bags who may or may not torch my car if "their team" (they own the fucking team now?) looses...or wins even. It's not that I hate all people, it's just that I hate stupid people and unfortunately that seems to be almost all of them.

Yeah, I guess that is why reading it was slightly more appealing than watching it, because at least I could use a little of my imagination...like imagining the woman was actually attractive and not what society seems to try and convince me is attractive. Call me crazy, but I don't think these walking silicone implanted, spray tanned until they look like an Oompa loompa, single brain celled women, that seem to be in most porn, are even remotely appealing. Someone once told me I should ditch the professional porn and check out the amateur stuff instead. Yeah, because women who make amateur porn are so much more appealing. Mmmmm trailer trash with teef... sexy. HAHA! I'll stick to the real thing or just use my imagination, thank you.

I hated these books. I knew it was porn going in, and it was STILL badly written porn. I read fucking Literotica, for god's sake, I don't expect my life to change over some over-hyped smut, but dear lord...Terrible!
She can mutter and mumble and whisper herself all the way to fucking hell. The only Grey in my life should be Dorian.

GAH!!!!!!!

Btw, i'm reading a smut/spoof/....thing called "Fifty Shades of Alice in Wonderland." It is 50 shades better, and it involves fucking someone in a bunny suit.

Badly written porn that once again catapults women's highly sexual nature into the global spotlight until it is ultimately then forgotten again due to the masses having the attention span of a fucking gecko on speed, is STILL okay by me Kathryn.

Do tell us more about Fifty Shades of Alice in Wonderland. Is it just Alice in Wonderland Literotica? Is it based on Fifty Shades of Grey or is the title just mocking it? Is it comedy or meant to be serious? Don't leave us hanging, take us through the looking glass.

It's.....sexy satire. Like you, but raunchier. A lot raunchier. A lot a lot a lot raunchier. It fits well with having the attention span of a fucking gecko on speed.

Ummm...
Okay, Alice and her boyfriend, Lewis, are on the lawn, screwing, after he buys her a rabbit vibrator (duh) and she rejects it. He goes instantly, and falls asleep afterward. Alice is frustrated, the vibrator grows legs and hops off, she chases it, falls down the bunnyhole (lol...), and ends up doing the normal AiW thing. She runs into a man named Cater Pillar (haha.) and he ends up tying her up and teasing her and they fuck and blahblahblah. The story continues, she meets the rest of the characters and becomes aquainted with her inner goddes and sexual desires and shit. The closest it comes to 50 Shades is the bdsm scattered throughout and the understanding of sexuality (WHICH, might I add, is NOT actually a part of 50 Shades. She fucks one dude and ends up basically worshiping him and THAT'S supposed to be sexual liberation?? my ass.)....Anywho, she comes out of her weird hallucination and she's playing with the rabbit and wakes Lewis up and they do dirty things to each other, and they screw happily ever after the end.

It's also hilarious. And hot. Dirty hot.

And now a quote or seven.
" "We knew that," the Hatter said. "We were making a stupid pun."
"Which we must apologize for," said the Hare. They weren't funny when that hack Carroll did it back in 1865, and they certainly have no place in an e-book of mommy porn."
"What are you both talking about?" Alice asked, confused.
"Mommy porn is a crude label applied to erotica read by discerning, intelligent women who seek something more adventurous in their reading choices." the Hare said.
"What?" Alice asked.
"Perhaps you should Google the word 'metafiction" the Hare suggested." "

But then on the other side of things...

"Alice had no idea how long it went on. Minutes? Hours? But at some point, she resisted trying to spit out the thing in her mouth, and began to suck on it. Hard. She wanted that thing deep in her throat, far as it could go. Alice imagined it was Lewis. Then she imagined it was Pilar. Before she knew it, Alice was concentrating so hard on the dildo that she didn't even notice Pilar was no longer teasing her. With no stimulation at all, the feeling in Alice began to build again. Her breath came faster, and as she sucked, her womanhood seemed to ignite. She was getting just as much pleasure from sucking a piece of plastic as she had been when Pilar was touching her.
Then the terrible man began to tease her with that as well."

"It's.....sexy satire. Like you, but raunchier. A lot raunchier. A lot a lot a lot raunchier. It fits well with having the attention span of a fucking gecko on speed."
Okay, I'm sold Kat, this will very likely be the next book I read, mostly because it sounds more hilarious than anything else. I went to Amazon to read the description also and found myself cracking up at the "WHAT READERS ARE SAYING" section.

What's weird is that women have always read erotic literature so it isn't anything new. I think it just dropped at a time when the younger generation and the older generation could relate to something and connect over it. Mommy porn meets Twilight fan fiction. I was talking with a friend today about how literature doesn't necessarily have to be good to be completely successful and it's kind of weird that people actually expect it to be since very few other things are. It's all about the environment when it hits the public as to how it is received. For instance, the most popular/successful book in the world (The Bible) is about as shitty as it gets as far as the writing goes...among other things. Shakespeare is a really difficult read and many of the successful "classics" are dull as shit on a straight writing merit. However, they all hit at a time when the socioeconomic or political climate was just right to receive them. I don't really see this as any different, it's just the perfect storm right now for it to create a global discussion...and not even a new one at that. Who gives a shit if it is not the most well written thing in the world? Has anyone ever tried to read War and Peace cover to cover? How many of the tool bags that cite The Bible as their favorite book has actually read that cover to cover as well? Successful literature is a tricky animal and to only approach it from a point of view of how well it is written is just silly. Besides, I don't remember any multiple orgasms in War and Peace, but then again, I didn't finish it so who the fuck knows.

Every time you say something derogatory about Steve Jobs an American kid gets a math problem right, a business mogul's wings are torn off, and pursuant to the butterfly effect my comedy boner creates a tsunami in Southeast Asia.

There must be a fuck-ton of unreported Southeast Asian tsunamis then. Is that where he got all those underage workers from, they just washed up on the shores of China from a destructive Jeff Gassen comedy boner?